ARTICLES https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0753-6 An early Aurignacian arrival in southwestern Europe Miguel Cortés-Sánchez1,2, Francisco J. Jiménez-Espejo 3,4*, María D. Simón-Vallejo1,2, Chris Stringer 5, María Carmen Lozano Francisco 2, Antonio García-Alix4,6, José L. Vera Peláez2, Carlos P. Odriozola1,2, José A. Riquelme-Cantal7, Rubén Parrilla Giráldez2, Adolfo Maestro González8, Naohiko Ohkouchi3 and Arturo Morales-Muñiz9 Westernmost Europe constitutes a key location in determining the timing of the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomi- cally modern humans (AMHs). In this study, the replacement of late Mousterian industries by Aurignacian ones at the site of Bajondillo Cave (Málaga, southern Spain) is reported. On the basis of Bayesian analyses, a total of 26 radiocarbon dates, including 17 new ones, show that replacement at Bajondillo took place in the millennia centring on ~45–43 calibrated thousand years before the present (cal ka BP)—well before the onset of Heinrich event 4 (~40.2–38.3 cal ka BP). These dates indicate that the arrival of AMHs at the southernmost tip of Iberia was essentially synchronous with that recorded in other regions of Europe, and significantly increases the areal expansion reached by early AMHs at that time. In agreement with human dispersal sce- narios on other continents, such rapid expansion points to coastal corridors as favoured routes for early AMH. The new radio- carbon dates align Iberian chronologies with AMH dispersal patterns in Eurasia. he replacement of Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal popu- attention. This is because it is associated with the putative extinction lations by anatomically modern humans (AMHs), which of Neanderthals, given that Aurignacian technocomplex elements Tin Europe are associated with Early Upper Palaeolithic have now been securely associated with AMHs1. (EUP) industries, constitutes a crucial and hotly debated issue in In comparing the early stages of the Aurignacian dispersal (Fig. 1) Palaeolithic studies1,2. This biocultural turnover has been addressed with subsequent transitions, two spatiotemporal anomalies emerge. from various standpoints, including interspecies competition either The first is recorded on the Italian Peninsula, where populations in isolation3 or combined with climate change4, environmental cri- manufacturing the Uluzzian industry (for some authors, a develop- ses and episodic events such as volcanic eruptions5. In addition, ment rooted in the Mousterian lithic tradition9) seemingly prevented given that biological evidence, whether bones or biomolecules, is the expansion of the early Aurignacian10. The second anomaly is transmitted through genetic processes whereas cultural materi- documented in mid-southern Iberia, where the Aurignacian expan- als are transmitted via learning processes, another issue is to what sion is postulated to have been delayed to the point of failure11. The extent the biological and cultural transitions are coupled with, or proposal that the Middle Palaeolithic technocomplex extended decoupled from, each other. to the end of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar: Great effort has been devoted to framing the spatiotemporal fea- ~32.5 calibrated thousand years before the present (cal ka bp11) has tures of Neanderthal replacement, as this may help to resolve the lent weight to the hypothesis that the EUP reached southern Iberia processes that triggered population and technological turnovers6. at a comparatively late date. This reinforced the validity of a particu- This includes determining any directionality of technological and lar version of the east-to-west wave-of-advance mode that set apart population changes that, according to genetic and archaeological the ‘Iberian South’ from the rest of the Peninsula12. data, become recurrent events in western Europe from the Late Pleistocene onwards, generally exhibiting an east to west trend. Results and discussion Mousterian technocomplex replacement by Aurignacian popula- To reliably pin down the Neanderthal–AMH transition in southern tions is postulated to be one such east-to-west population turn- Iberia, 17 new dates restricted to levels covering the transition of the over1. This same directionality is documented for the Gravettian Mousterian to the Aurignacian at the site of Bajondillo in the Bay technocomplex that replaced the Aurignacian7, the genetically and of Málaga (southern Spain) (Fig. 1, Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and culturally documented Magdalenian–Azilian transition in western Supplementary Table 1) have been integrated with previous radio- Europe at the beginning of the Bölling–Alleröd interstadial8, and metric dates13, using a Bayesian approach. The Middle Palaeolithic replacements within the Epigravettian cultures of southern Europe. at Bajondillo lasts for ~120 kyr14, as represented by 6 archaeological Among European east–west population turnovers, the levels (that is, Bj/19–Bj/14) (Supplementary Fig. 1), the last of which Mousterian–Aurignacian transition has perhaps received the most features a Denticulate Mousterian (~50–46 cal ka bp)13 (Fig. 2). 1Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain. 2HUM-949 Research Group, Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología, Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain. 3Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Japan. 4Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-UGR, Armilla, Spain. 5Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK. 6Departamento de Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. 7Departamento de Geografía y Ciencias del Territorio, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain. 8Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Madrid, Spain. 9Laboratorio de Arqueozooarqueología, Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. *e-mail: [email protected] NATURE EcologY & EvolUTION | VOL 3 | FEBRUARY 2019 | 207–212 | www.nature.com/natecolevol 207 ARTICLES NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION N 14 Europe 49° N 19 >42 cal ka BP 17 20 <42 cal ka BP 15 Atlantic Ocean 16 13 18 11 12 42° N 10 22 9 Latitude 8 21 1 7 5 6 4 3 2 Bajondillo ODP-977A 25 Mediterranean Sea 35° N 24 23 Africa 0 250 500 750 1,000 26 km 7° W0°7° E 14° E 21° E Longitude Fig. 1 | Selected archaeological sites in western Europe and North Africa. Map reconstruction with the coastline at 85 m below sea level, including elevations (contours every 500 m), ice and permafrost correspond to LGM, ~20 cal ka BP (white and blue outlined areas). Referenced archaeological sites in Europe and North Africa where EUP sites between 44 and 42 cal ka BP have been identified are labelled as follows: Bajondillo (this paper; 3), Romaní27 (9), Arbreda27 (10), Isturitz27 (11), Labeko27 (12), La Viña27 (13), Kent’s Cavern28 (14), Castanet27 (15), Pataud27 (16), Les Cottés27 (17), Riparo Mochi27 (18), Geißenklösterle30 (19), Fumane27 (20), Serino27 (21) and Peshtera/Kozarnika8 (22). Potential associated areas are shown in orange. EUP sites with ages < 42 cal ka BP in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa are labelled as follows: Pego do Diabo29 (1), Gorham’s Cave11 (2), Ventanas and Carigüela (this paper; 4), Antón12 (5), Mallaetes17 (6), Foradada16 (7) and La Boja12 (8). Potential associated areas are shown in yellow. The African sites Haua Fteah31 (23), Grotte des Pigeons32 (Taforalt) (24), Benzú33 (25) and Jebel Irhoud34 (26) are also included. See detailed references for each archaeological site in the Supplementary Information. Base map reproduced from ref. 46, Elsevier. The typological features of the 13,399 lithics from this Middle to Proto-Aurignacian or Early Aurignacian technocomplexes. Palaeolithic package evidence the stasis of a Mousterian technologi- The earliest Aurignacian technocomplexes in western Europe, cal tradition dominated by scrapers, notches and denticulates lack- starting ≤ 43 cal ka bp, have been traditionally classified as Proto- ing the operative schemes and maintenance items of the nuclei that Aurignacian (Mediterranean) or Early Aurignacian, which origi- typify Upper Palaeolithic technocomplexes13. Our new dates reveal nally appears in Central Europe but later reaches its westernmost that the major change in technology occurs at level Bj/13 (~43.0− regions1. To define Bj/13 as Proto- or Early Aurignacian is far 40.8 cal ka bp; Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 1). The technological from straightforward. One reason for this is that the number of novelties of the 353-item assemblage from this level include blades tools from Bj/13 falls below the ≥ 100 tools threshold required and bladelet cores (1.1%), end-scrapers and one borer or blade with for a statistically reliable assignment (Supplementary Table 2). continued retouch (see Supplementary chapter ‘Lithic industries’, In Iberia, this is a recurrent problem in sites covering the Middle Supplementary Table 2 and Supplementary Fig. 4 for a detailed Palaeolithic–Upper Palaeolithic transition. For Neanderthals from discussion). Level Bj/13 also shows a 233% increase in the elonga- Gorham’s Cave, Zafarraya Cave and Bajondillo Cave, such artefact tion index of flaked products: the number of elements of identified scarcity has been taken to reflect a sharp decline in their demog- blades and bladelets increases from 6% (Bj/14) to 14% (Bj/13)13. raphy towards the end of the Mousterian11,13,15. A sparse demogra- Such a shift is no accident. At Bj/13, coincident with a striking phy, coupled